


bits of stardust.

by jeonginks



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Strangers to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-17
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-06 17:39:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18855853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeonginks/pseuds/jeonginks
Summary: Traveling back in time is fun, especially when hyunjin wants to know all about modern day life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t do very thorough research with this so some facts might be wrong, sorry about that. But otherwise, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Warning: none except i haven’t proofread this!

There were times when you regret not studying for your tests and instead chose to click away from your practice questions so you could watch a five minutes video of a random dude on the internet teaching you how to pick a lock.

Well, that was a mouthful.

Anyway.

A prominent example of one of those times—one of those because there were uncountable amounts of them—would be the exact moment your teacher’s magnified voice echoed through the classroom, bringing the three dreadful words “five minutes left” with it.

And you were never so sure whether it was your teacher’s booming voice that would always startle you or the fact that you still have a whopping number of questions marked unanswered on the test that scared you the most.

There were times when you regret not studying for your tests.

And then there were times when you didn’t, and that time was right now.

“Okay, you got this,” you told yourself quietly, rubbing your fingertips across the body of the bobby pins in your hand. Giving the outside of the tight-spaced jail cell a quick glance, making sure the guards who dragged you here weren't paying you any attention, you reached your hand out in between the line gap and cranked your wrist to reach the rusty lock.

You were pretty sure you time traveled.

That was a pretty far fetched assumption but it was the only reasonable assumption to why the guards—who you had originally assumed to be extras in the filming of another historical drama—held actual spears, spears that grazed past your neck and dripped out blood. Depriving some knowledge of being a long term member of the theatre club, you knew props were mostly made out of non-harmful materials, not actual sticks and stones.

You were so sure you time traveled. You had landed in the middle of the throne room, intruding a court meeting. Your eyes wide in annoyance turned confusion as you shamelessly stared at the king in his eyes and spoke with informality.

To be honest, you could have been executed already if not for the fascination of the palace staffs at your unique attire and the handful of colored banners you were holding.

You should be more freaked out than your current state, you really should be weirded out beyond control that how to pick a lock was the last thing you remember, but damn it all the television shows you watched and the daydreams you had prepared you for this situation.

And also, if you do die, the worst-case scenario was that you feel a bit of pain and then you would wake up on a hospital bed or somewhere in the middle of the street.

No big deal, no big deal.

“Gotcha!” You hissed out joyfully after a good ten minutes of digging around the inner structure of the lock with two tiny pins that you prepared for the actress. The lock fell open and you quickly removed it from the door, carefully placing it on the floor before scooting over to the back of the cell.

You grabbed your schoolbag, remembering to place your bobby pins back into the plastic box. As you were about to zip your bag up, your eyes landed on the useful device that fit itself in between your lunch box and textbooks perfectly, and you frowned as you pulled it out.

“I mean…” you mumbled to yourself as you examined the Taser gun in your hand, one that your mother had given you recently due to you having night tutorial school, just in case of emergency.

This, technically, is an emergency. There weren’t much you knew about the past but you’ve got a handful of information that told you the system back in whatever dynasty was certainly worse than the system back in the modern life. Most importantly, historical dramas have taught you to never trust anyone in an old palace because any one of them could be a backstabbing bitch.

You shoved the Taser in your pocket before you stood up. Slowly sliding open the creaking door, cursing at the rough metal feeling on your hands that was certainly going to leave a sickening smell, you successfully slipped out of the jail cell and made your way down the hall.

Your giddy feeling didn’t last very long when the sight of two guards loomed over the shadow of the entrance to the jail chamber. You cursed, dumbly looking around your area to see if there was any spare weapon for you to use before, after a few moments, you clicked your tongue at the realization that you have a Taser in your pocket (and a trusting pair of scissors, a heavyweight biology textbook, and a portable charger with a very long, thick cord).

Perhaps people were right. Anything could be a weapon, it just depends on how you use it.

With silent encouragements, you pulled out the device from your pocket and slowly inched your way towards the guards. You swiftly tased one of them on the neck, spilling empty apologies as you pressed the guard down to the ground before a harsh plunge at your back.

“Sorry,” you turned around quickly, bringing the spear with you as the tip was stuck in your schoolbag, “Oh thank god for thick textbooks with hardcovers.”

You slammed the Taser down on the guard’s wrist before removing it and bring it up to his neck, putting him down quickly. You pulled away from the guard then, your brows furrowed and forehead dripping with sweat.

“Sorry,” you said, turning around to face the entrance.

Hyunjin was looking back at you with wide, bewildered eyes. His lips tucked down into a frown and his lips were parted due to genuine shock. It took him a few moments to process the scene, to process the sight of you: your clothing of an unfamiliar style, your shoes of a shiny material he couldn’t quite make out, and the fact that their well-trained guards were taken down by a mere peasant just like that.

Hyunjin breathed in gently. Peasant wouldn’t be the right word, would it? He’s heard people talk about you around the palace, after the daily court meeting. He was not there to witness your abrupt arrival but from all that he has gathered: you didn’t sound like—you didn’t look like—someone from around this place.

“Dude, look, I’m not going to tase you if you just let me go,” you held up your hands in surrender, “Just let me walk away from here, alright? Please.”

Hyunjin cleared his throat, unable to fully understand some of the words you were using but he caught onto the idea that you simply wanted to leave without any trouble with him. Fortunately, he was on the same page as you. He was never one to engage in a fight, not to mention with someone who owned unpredictable weapons like you.

He stepped aside, gesturing towards his left, “Don’t go through the gate, there are more guards there and you will get caught. Climb over the brick wall in the garden, no one ever goes there.”

You squinted your eyes at him, at the questionable kindness that he was showing you. You were pretty sure the whole palace would be talking about you by now, not to be egotistical about this, of course. What made you think anyone would choose to help you escape when almost everyone was alert of your presence (that was supposedly secure inside the cell)?

But Hyunjin didn’t look very threatening. His features were far too gentle and gorgeous for you to believe he would have any malice lying around in his head, but then again, you didn’t know Princess Deokhye was a bitch until episode ten.

You hummed, your brows furrowed even more at the thought, the wheels of your brain basically running on the logic of historical drama at the moment. Stretching your arm forward, you threateningly zapped the air a few times, startling Hyunjin.

“How do I know you’re not lying?” You asked.

“You can’t,” Hyunjin’s eyes darted around the area, not daring to look at you in the eyes. “No one is forcing you to climb the brick wall. You can go through the gates if you want. All I am saying is there is a quieter option for you to leave, you can choose to heed my advice or you don’t.”

You nodded then, lowering your arms but your eyes still looked at him in caution, “Fine, I’ll take it… thank you.”

As you walked out of the chamber door, brushing away the sweat that stained your forehead, you could feel Hyunjin’s eyes on you. You supposed it was only normal for him to stare, you weren’t exactly one of the ordinary sights they see every day, but that didn’t mean you weren’t weirded out by his curious glance.

You shook your head to put away the thoughts. How Hyunijn was looking at you didn’t matter, you would be out of the palace in no time and hopefully find a nicer place to rest your brain so you could think of a way to get out of this timeline. You would never see him again anyway so why bother?

Turning around, you gave yourself some time to collect your thoughts before you started to walk towards the direction Hyunjin had pointed you to. Your mind was too occupied with organizing your thoughts that you didn’t see a group of guards heading towards your way, so when Hyunjin suddenly pressed himself to your side, you were startled.

“Hey, what the hell are you–”

“Guards,” Hyunjin muttered under his breath as he placed both of his hand on your shoulders, “Walking over here.”

He turned when the armored men neared you both. With a casual smile plastered on his face, he motioned towards the guards with a quick nod as they all bowed their heads down politely.

“Good morning, Your Highness,” the lead of the group greeted loudly, his firm voice making you jump.

After the brief startlement came surprise. Your Highness? No way, absolutely no way. You called him dude and you pointed a Taser at him. This could only go one of two ways: the prince finds you intriguing because ‘you’re the first person to ever treat me this way’ or the prince hates you and want to immediately execute you.

Even though Hyunjin did point you towards the exit, but you found it hard to have faith in your luck that has literally never treated you well before.

Your eyes widened as you turned your neck to look to Hyunjin, who although appeared to be paying you no attention whatsoever, but was actually reaching out for your hand and giving it a loose squeeze of assurance, his movement drowned out by the long, big sleeve of his outfit.

“Your Highness, why are you with the prisoner? Are they attempting to attack you?”

You instinctively stood behind Hyunjin when the men raised their spears as if ready to engage in a fight. You grimaced with a timid glare, wanting so bad to tell them off but knowing you were at a disadvantage here, you chose to let Hyunjin handle the matter.

“No, actually! I… uh… they are actually a cousin of mine!” Hyunjin clapped his hands together, his polite smile widening in feign excitement. “I forgot they are going to be staying here for a while to visit me and my family so I have come to retrieve them!”

You pursed your lips together as the guards lowered their weapon, finding this situation more amusing than ever. It was a very terrible lie, it would be a terrible lie if it was used in the modern world, but maybe it was what works for them considering how big family relations were back in the days. You could still remember the bitter taste of your tears as you tried your best to cram the important relationships within the palace one night before your history test.

That was horrible. You really thought history can’t get any worse until you find yourself experiencing it first hand.

The guard showed no signs of reluctance as he turned to you and quickly ducked his head politely. After a brief moment, he looked back up at Hyunjin and gestured towards the court area of the palace.

“We need to inform your father about this, Your Highness. We have been appointed to keep an eye on them especially,” he nodded towards you, “If they are to be released, we need to inform the king about this, or else we will have to put them back in the cell. Please understand that it is the king’s order, Your Highness.”

“What?” You scoffed, your brows furrowing as you peeked over Hyunjin’s shoulder, “Am I that threatening or is your dad a wuss?”

“Wu–wuss?”

You glanced at him for a moment, preparing to repeat the word only to remember no matter how many times you say it, he wasn’t going to understand you. So you only rolled your eyes and stepped out from behind Hyunjin, crossing your arms menacingly at the guards.

“Fine, take me to the court,” you shrugged before turning to face Hyunjin, who was eyeing you with heavy reluctance. You mocked a courtesy his way, watching his expression morph into one of confusion, “Come on, Your Highness, let’s go.”

This might be a better way for you to get out of the palace any moment you want, telling everyone that Hyunjin was a cousin of yours and thus establishing a relation to royalty. All you have to do is lie your ass off in the court, which would not be a problem at all, you’ve been lying your whole life to get away from trouble and to sneak your friends out of their house when needed.

This? Easy peasy.

* * *

This was not easy peasy.

You liked to pride yourself in lying well even with the lack of crucial information and you liked to believe you were pretty good at improvising, thanks to theatre club, but this interrogation where pairs of eyes stared at you curiously and condescendingly was making you shiver.

You weren’t exactly afraid (although you have to admit you were a little bit intimidated), you just didn’t want to mess anything up. And if you could, you would very much like to slap the lady sitting next to one of the princes who continuously gave you the gross eyes whenever you looked around the grand place.

It wasn’t that big, probably the size of your school hall, but the red and gold decorations were over the top in your opinion.

“My fifth son.”

You glanced at Hyunjin as he knelt down to greet his father, your mouth tucking down both at the formality he was displaying and the fact that his father addressed him as if Hyunjin was some distant relative he only saw twice a year.

You knew it was the custom back in the day, to show absolute respect for higher status people by doing the most unnecessary gestures. And to be truthful, you never liked the way the unfair system ran back in the days, so you chose not to follow Hyunjin’s action and instead stood on your ground as you reminded yourself that your worst-case scenario would be a public execution that doesn’t actually kill you.

Hyunjin slightly looked to the side to find your feet still stomped solidly on the floor, and he finally looked up. He reached out to give your ankle a smack, hissing out quietly, “Bow down.”

“Why? He wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to you,” you mumbled down at him, shaking his hand off with a kick before returning your attention back to the courtroom, still trying to take in the sight of everything—from the people to the architecture.

With a fearful click of his tongue, Hyunjin quickly stood back up. His eyes darted between his father and his brothers, who were all looking at you with curiosity and wariness in their eyes as they whispered among themselves about most possibly your relationship with Hyunjin, and he breathed out an exhale to contain himself.

This was no time to be afraid, no time for him to let his emotion waver. Hyunjin was sure you weren’t anyone particularly threatening, so long as no one attempts to start an attack at least, and he would hate to mess up and end up having huge responsibilities on his shoulder, especially not when his household held the least status in the palace.

Not many people would be on his side then.

The King breathed in deep, feeling the rage rile up from your disrespectful behavior but it was the simple intrigue regarding your unique being that urged him to suppress his current feelings to further access the situation before he makes a judgment.

And the King, as did most people in the room, found it extremely surprising when he only adjusted his already rigid posture. Curling his fists tighter on his knees as he spoke with an authoritative voice, “Explain to me what you think you are doing, my son.”

Hyunjin cleared his throat then, tentatively stepping up with his hands clamped together in front of him. You frowned at the constant bow that lingered on his back as he spoke, it took you everything to not smack his arched back up straight again.

Awkwardly, he gestured towards you with his timid hands, “There seems to be a misunderstanding, Your Majesty. They… they are actually a very distant cousin of mine who is stopping by to visit me for a while. They are not anyone hostile or anyone to be aware of.”

The King sized you up from the comfort of his throne for a little before he asked, his question directed towards you, “If that is true then what is his name?”

Hyunjin tensed up next to you, his breath hitching in his throat and his hands fumbling with themselves as he tried his best not to glance nervously to your side. The ball of anxiousness ceased to bounce around in his head when you, after a short period of contemplation where you practically squeezed your brain for all the names of the princes you could think of, gave out an airy laugh.

With your chest out, shoulders back, and an almost exaggerated amount of hand gestures pairing with the right amount of big confusing words that both your theatre club president and your argumentative essays had drilled into you all those times, you spoke up with fake confidence.

Let’s just hope to god you would get the dynasty timeline correct this time. You were never that good with matching timelines in your tests, but on your defense, your teacher was a little bit of a jerk when it came to creating questions.

“Your Majesty, with all due respect, I think your question is a little moronic. Also I find your lack of faith in your son very troubling, I don’t see why you can’t simply trust him when he told you I am a distant relative of his,” you said with a few shakes of your head and some creases at the corner of your eyes, “But if you must know–yes, I do know his name, I know all of your sons’ name. I can name them off right now.”

You turned to your side, one arm stretched out as you pointed vaguely at the group of boys sitting at the side, all dressed in colorful fabric with detailed patterns. “We have Woojin, Chan, Minho, Changbin–”

Hyunjin coughed loudly for a moment to interrupt you despite the palpitating of his heart.

He wasn’t sure if his heart could take this much more, this emotional rollercoaster of him being nervous about your informality towards literally every royalty to ever walk the surface of this palace, to him being in utter confusion at the fact that you knew all of them and you spoke in a wording that he could not fully understand.

If you were dressed in a more normal, peasant styled clothing, he would not have been as bewildered as he was now. But you weren’t. You were from a faraway place and he supposed the fact that you knew of his family and him should cause some awareness within him.

Quickly snapping out of his thoughts, Hyunjin reached his hand out of cover his mouth as he eyed you with a look, catching on to the fact that you were purposefully naming off his siblings in age order, which was another shocker.

You smiled inwardly, moving your hand and resting it on Hyunjin’s shoulder in such a friendly manner that made the room gasp in disbelief. “Hyunjin, my distant cousin, of course,” you said with a bow of your head, “And the rest are, I believe Hyunjin had told me before, Jisung, Yongbok, Seungmin, and Jeongin.”

After your dramatic speech, you smiled triumphantly at the King as you leaned your weight against Hyunjin’s side, completely disregarding the eyes of all the royal staffs.

Hyunjin cleared his throat and stepped away from you a bit, he didn’t dare to look at his father when he spoke, “Please believe in me, Your Majesty. They are a distant cousin of mine and they have stopped their traveling to visit my family for a while. They will not be bothering for a long time.”

The King stared at you both for a long time before he spoke, his voice still loud and strong but you could hear the lessening of his alertness in it. When he spoke, he looked directly at you and the corner of his lips quirked up as if finding amusement in your complete ignorance to his high status, “Where did you travel to…”

“The name’s (Name), my frien–Your Majesty,” you rolled out your corrections quickly, your eyes squinting in the realization that calling the King a friend would possibly—would definitely—be crossing a line, “And I came here from… the Neverland.”

“The Neverland?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” you said, “It is a very interesting place, I have to say. There is no map for it, the only direction given to me before I started my journey to find the enchanted treasure in Neverland is that I absolutely have to follow the second star to the right. Not the first star, not to the left. The second star to the right.”

The King laughed, “But that is impossible. There are millions of stars in the sky, which star is the direction pointed to?”

“Oh, nothing is impossible with a little bit of knowledge, Your Majesty,” you said, finding nothing but joy in your nonsense blabber that everyone seemed to be putting their utmost seriousness in. You reached in from your pocket and pulled out your Taser, pulling it away from your face and giving it a light zap of lighting.

“If it is impossible, how else can you explain this treasure? It holds the power of thunder, only I can wield it, as the God told me when I arrived at the Neverland,” you said, smiling in a strange way to keep yourself from bursting into laughter.

The King sat back against his throne, a thoroughly entertained and satisfied expression on his face. The interested faces of everyone made the little ego inside of your chest burst into a million light.

Fine. Maybe it was a little easy peasy.

You breathed out a sigh of relief then, motioning towards Hyunjin, “If you could, Your Majesty, I would like to be excused so I can catch up with my cousin.”

Hyunjin felt a nudge on his shoulder and it was only then when he realized that he hadn’t been paying much attention to his surroundings. He was staring at you the whole time, just like everyone else in the courtroom.

Maybe it was just him but there was something about the way you carry yourself, something about the beaming of your aura that felt different than most people he counters in this palace. It was something quite brilliant and incomparable, not even the noblemen or the royalties, he thought.

Something one of a kind.

“Let’s go,” you urged, waving your hand at him with a bright smile.

Something peculiar, but in a good way, he supposed.

* * *

Hyunjin brought you to the back of the palace. He let you guide him out the courtroom and mindlessly roamed around for a while before he spoke up about the fact that you had absolutely no idea where you were going so he should really be the one leading the way.

He led you to the back yard, where he told you that the place was mostly used for hanging up washed laundry so it was more of a working place for the maids than a playground for the royalties. But when the maids finished drying the clothes and sheets and after they collected them, it usually takes a couple of days before the cycle starts again.

Hyunjin loved the tranquility during those days when nobody comes around the yard and he could have the area all to himself, free to do whatever he wants.

You placed your backpack next to you as you sat down cross-legged beside Hyunjin, under a giant tree and hiding perfectly in the shade. You licked your lower lip in thought as you scanned the yard observantly. Aside from the big tree the two of you were sitting under, there wasn’t much going on, but you supposed no one thought to make a working place any prettier than it should be. Even though a few more pots of flowers would be nice.

“This is Goryeo, right?” You asked, turning to look at him with a knowing expression.

Hyunjin nodded slowly, his head going in a way as if his action was stuttering. That was weird, he thought you already knew?

“I know about this place, I’ve seen it on television before,” you commented, waving at the scenery in front of you, if you could call the dull concrete floor that. The only thing doing this place a justice was the sunlight and the gentle breeze, other than that it was all mosquitoes and hot humid air that you could not endure. “I gotta say, the fake sets are so much prettier than this.”

Hyunjin tilted his head to the side, trying to pronounce the unfamiliar word. He felt as if he was back in the younger days when he first started to learn how to read and write and it felt both humiliating and refreshing.

“Tele–televi–”

You blinked at him, watching as he attempted at the loaned word that people have gotten so used to saying in your time. An amused smile crept up your face as you stopped him with a pause of your hand. You pointed at your mouth then, “Repeat after me, Hyunjin. Tele, vision, television.”

“Television,” he wobbled the word out carefully, nodding adorably at each syllable. “Television! What is it?”

You clapped with a small cheer before leaning over to him. “Oh, now that you ask me to explain it… let me think,” you hummed, “It’s a thing, a square or rectangular screen–ah, you probably don’t know what screen is either… oh damn, this is hard. How about I show you?”

Hyunjin watched as you reach over to your bag and unzipped it. He tried to sit up a little to peer inside the things you own but you had already pulled out your phone and pressed the lid close. When you turned to him, Hyunjin immediately relaxed his shoulders to make it look like he hadn’t been noisy at all.

“Look at this, this is a smartphone and it’s basically a television. If you have wifi that is…” You pressed the home button and the screen lit up, showing the clock in the middle and a mirror picture of you and your best friend in the school restroom.

Hyunjin gasped, moving away but quickly moving back to stare closely at the screen. He pointed at the screen and pointed at you, “Why are you in there?”

You laughed, “This is a picture. Oh, let’s take a selfie. A selfie is when you take a picture of yourself from a camera, a camera…” You squinted your eyes as you thought of a better translation than 'taking a picture,’ “…is a devi–a thing that collects the real-life scenery, kind of like a mirror.”

You held up your phone after sliding up the camera and held it in front of your face. Brushing a part of your hair out, you leaned towards Hyunjin to show him the screen, and by this point, you weren’t even as amused as before when he acted amazed at modern technology. If anything, it felt more like teaching your grandparents how to use the internet.

“Hold still and smile, Hyunjin,” You said, placing a hand on his shoulder to keep him from moving and trying to poke your phone.

You quickly snapped several pictures and went to your gallery. It took Hyunjin the fourth picture to finally smile up at the camera, the ones before were simply of him displaying complete confusion towards the idea of capturing still image. Smiling down at your phone, your brows slowly furrowed as your fingers moved across your screen in a back and forth motion several times.

A thoughtful hum fell from your lips as you held your phone up to his face after a moment, comparing Hyunjin to a picture you had stored in your gallery. You glanced at him and at the picture, your brows slowly relaxing as your face molded into approval.

Hyunjin looked… unexpectedly good, so good you almost wanted to beat yourself up for realizing it just now. Surely, his hairstyle and his clothes were not of your taste at all, but he’s got a pair of naturally soft eyes, well-shaped brows, and full lips. You thought if you could just cut his hair and put him in something casual, he would look phenomenal.

“Shit, you look almost as good as Kim Taehyung… if not better looking… hold on,” you muttered under your breath before moving over, moving away the hair that flails about the side of his face and sliding your hand under his bangs, puffing them up.

You nodded then, not even trying to hide the fact that you had been checking him out, “Damn, wouldn’t you look good in a headband?”

Hyunjin felt the shyness creep up his cheeks upon your careless action, touching his face and all that, and he thought maybe this was the way people were from your place. He was too tensed up to pull himself away from your touch so instead, he let you continue to mutter suggestions under your breath.

“Um… where are you from… (Name)?” He tested your name at the tip of his tongue, watching carefully to see if you would be okay with him addressing you by name even though it was what you had been doing the whole time you’ve met him.

“Me? Well, technically speaking, I am from here,” you removed your hand and leaned back a little, putting a hand on your chin as your eyes rolled skyward to think, “But I’m am from about a thousand years after this time, a long long time after Goryeo.”

Hyunjin stared at you in disbelief, you could see the questions behind his eyes, but something about the deliberate way he spoke made you think he was trying to believe in what you were saying.

“You can’t say that here,” he said urgently, waving his hand at you with his eyes wide, “That implies the death of the King, those implications aren’t allowed anywhere in the country.”

You frowned, “He is going to die regardless of what we say or don’t say. He can’t live forever, Hyunjin, no one can. Trust me, you can only find him in the museum or on the internet in the future.”

You waved a hand at him when he opened his mouth, assuming he was going to ask you about the foreign vocabularies that you have once again spilled from your mouth.

Hyunjin pursed his lips together then, his shoulders slumping in defeat when he had finally come to a conclusion that you won’t be directly following the rules here as you please. You had already disrespected the King and his siblings an enough amount to get yourself back in the dungeon with several whip stain on your back. It was a miracle that you left the courtroom safe and sound.

He wasn’t as uptight about the way you treated him, like an old friend, like you two were equal. If anything, he quite liked the realness aura that came from you, a kind of confidence that came from being sure of who you were and choosing not to let outside sources affect you. He quite admired it, really.

But that didn’t stop him from being afraid of the things that could happen to you if you do cross the line. He wouldn’t be able to save you then, his siblings might be able to but not him.

Pushing his thoughts aside, Hyunjin pointed towards your side and asked something more light-hearted, “What are you going to do, if you really are from the future?”

“I am from the future, Hyunjin,” you sighed, looking up at the sky in thoughts.

You could remember exactly what happened before you suddenly regained your consciousness that you didn’t realize you lost and found yourself among a crowd of royalty from the past. You were heading to school early in the morning, extra early because you needed to help prepare the stage set up for the school’s summer assembly day, where all clubs join together and they either perform something or they run a game stand in the soccer field outside the school.

But that was it.

You were simply heading to school. You did your morning routine, you grabbed everything and rushed out of home, went on a bus, got off, and half-way through walking towards the gate, you were gone. There weren’t any connections for you to make, unlike most fiction you’ve encountered where time travels as these happen in almost identical situations, like a car crash or a falling star.

Hyunjin pouted when you shrugged, shaking your head with a tired hum.

“I don’t know, Hyunjin,” you replied mindlessly, “Maybe I will have to stay here until I die, which I hope to God I don’t. But I don’t know why I am here so I don’t think there is any potential way for me to go back.”

He pressed his lips together then, “Hey, it isn’t that bad here.”

“I am a millennial, Hyunjin, a life without air-conditioning and the internet will kill me,” you said, your tone mocking the way you have heard adults complain about the destruction from technology.

Turning to him, you smiled a little, “I wish you know what air-conditioner is. That machine is heaven sent, I promise. It sucks air in and blows of cold wind to cool down the room.”

“Like a paper fan?” Hyunjin tilted his head to the side.

You nodded, doing hand gestures in the air as if it could make the mental image more vivid to him, “Yeah, except it is strong and it doesn’t run by human hands. It runs by batteries that cause it to move on its own.”

“That sounds… unrealistic,” Hyunjin frowned.

You looked at him then, your gaze soft in relaxation and your smile faint. The uncomfortable humidity of the air no longer fazed you, although you would still very much like to take off your hoodie and run a cold bath.

Hyunjin’s company was calming and you enjoyed his presence. It could partially be his dashing good looks but you thought it was mostly the tender curiosity and kindness that surrounded him.

You could feel it on him, somehow.

“It does, doesn’t it?” You said, dragging out your words slowly and your voice trailing off at the end of the sentence.

Hyunjin fought back the blush that was slowly touching up his cheeks upon your thoughtful stare. He looked away at the far concrete wall, cleaning his throat, “Well, like I said, Goryeo isn’t that bad.”

You grinned at his adorableness. It is rare for someone like that to come along, and when they do, you try not to let them go.

“Hyunjin, I’m going to lean on you, okay?” You called him, placing a hand on his shoulder as a heads up before you slowly scooted over to sit closer to him.

He gulped when you placed your head on his shoulder nonchalantly but he found himself relaxing slowly at your steady breathing.

“Thank you for saving my ass,” you muttered, “I really would have gone the other way and gotten myself into more trouble.”

“It’s fine,” he replied, staring off into a distance the way you were. “You don’t know much about this place anyway. It is probably really hard to be so far away… a thousand years.”

You chuckled under your breath, nodding wordlessly instead of choosing to answer with your voice. This silent peace was something you didn’t want to disrupt. It gave you a chance to clear your head and to rest securely against someone at the same time, it was what you needed after putting on a front and pushing aside the reality that had set itself before your eyes.

“I… I can take you out to town tomorrow. I can show you around a little, to get familiar with the Goryeo,” Hyunjin suggested cheerfully, “There are a lot of good things here too.”

“Okay,” was your answer after a long moment of pause.

The soft wind blew at your face, making your eyes squint a little. But you felt the weight of your worries lift off your heavy heart gently, one by one, chunk by chunk, as you unconsciously leaned yourself heavier against Hyunjin, who surprisingly did not protest.

What more could you do? You were already here. Perhaps there was no harm in staying for a while before you find yourself a gateway out of here. Perhaps this was an escape, a gateway out of your busy school life.

And you were certain that you would gladly try to enjoy your stay here if Hyunjin was the one who would guide you through this place.

* * *

You found your neck aching the next morning. The wooden pillow really wasn’t the best thing for you to lay your head on, you had realized that in the middle of the night after you tossed and turned around for a bit. You did result in replacing it with your arm and then your folded hoodie, did the damage to your weak bone appeared to already be done.

Rolling your head side to side, you sniffed at the cold weather in the early morning (you weren’t able to tell the time, your phone was wrong most likely, but if you had to guess you would say it was around school time) as you spread out your hoodie and put it over your head to warm yourself up. Your eyes were barely open as you stepped down the flight of stone stairs to the outside of the room prepared for you the night before.

Reaching into your schoolbag—you have decided to bring it everywhere with you—you stuck your hand into the small pocket and pulled out a few pieces of mint chocolate you selfishly took too many amounts of in the front of a restaurant.

You moaned in delight when you popped one in your mouth and tasted the melting chocolate on your tongue. Nodding in approval, you played around with the pieces in your palm as you mindlessly looked ahead of you again, just staring at the architecture of Hyunjin’s home you didn’t get the chance to observe during the night.

Hyunjin’s house was abnormally big but you supposed that would only make sense since he was a prince. This amount was probably nothing much compared to the whole entire palace. The structure was not something you were used to seeing, only occasionally when you pass by the public palace back in your days.

You breathed out a soft sigh as reality hit you like a truck again. A bad night sleep didn’t put you back to where you belong, this was really happening, you really did time travel.

“Good morning.”

You jumped slightly at the sudden appearance of his voice. Pressing a quick hand to your chest, you stepped aside to find Hyunjin looking at you with no trace of exhaustion in his face. It was like he woke up ages ago.

“You look chirpy,” you laughed before you rolled your eyes, remembering how the morning went for you this day. “Like those fucking birds at five am.”

Your eyes were wide open for a good full minute and you really thought you could drive yourself to insanity with the company of what sounded like millions of birds arguing outside your room, just shrieking at each other.

“Oh yes, the birds here are very loud in the morning. They wake us up, ” he nodded, choosing to ignore your obviously very irritated state, “Don’t you have birds back in your day?”

“We do, but I live in an apartment building. My home is all the way up in the thirtieth floor, there are no birds chirping at that height!” You groaned in annoyance, popping another mint chocolate into your mouth, “Besides, we have alarm clocks. But that doesn’t work now since I’m not sure if the time is right.”

“Telling time? You guys are able to do that in the future?”

“What? Oh, yeah. We have clocks that move every second and keeps track of the days and nights.” You said, glancing at his weirded out but also focused expression, completely engaged in your explanation the way he was yesterday. You lightly smiled, glad that he was listening despite the full-blown confusion in his head.

You unpeeled a mint chocolate piece and held it to his mouth, urging him to eat it. Hyunjin showed a sign of reluctance at first but seeing that you were happily munching on yours, he supposed it should be fine. After he took the piece in his mouth, you placed the remaining pieces in your pocket and turned both of you towards the sky.

“There is a way to tell time without a clock, you can use your hand,” you said, holding up one palm, “One palm is one hour, and the fingers are fifteen minutes. You just have to stack them up to count how long it is until the sun comes down.”

Hyunjin hummed, nodding without really listening to you. The mint chocolate was melting deliciously on his tongue and he was trying to savor the taste by gently sucking on the piece, but it was melting way too fast for him.

You turned to him, seeing his squinted eyes and moving lips and immediately knowing that he liked the chocolate. You let your arms fall to your side as a funny laugh escaped your lips, “Do you want more chocolate?”

Hyunjin looked at you briefly, his eyes unwavering as he gulped down the taste. He later nodded, his eyes round and child-like, “Yes, please. I would like some more… choco–late… chocolate. What are those words? Television, chocolate, handphone?”

“Those are loan words, they are from the English language,” you replied with a gentle pat on his shoulder. You opened your palm to display one piece of chocolate and his eyes sparkled like never before, quickly snatching it away and popping it into his mouth.

You giggled when he moaned in content, watching his amazing reactions to something so normal in your days. The way his eyes animatedly move sent you little tingles down your chest, a refreshing kind of feeling like when you were talking about something you were passionate about. It was something you would like to feel more, so you had an idea.

“I have something to show you,” you said, snapping your fingers.

Hyunjin glanced over at you, the way your eyes crinkled told him you were planning something in your head. He swallowed before he asked, “What?”

“Cup ramen,” you replied, “I happen to have one in my bag. Just one though.”

He licked his lower lip, blinking at you as he repeated the word under his breath. Anything you wanted to show him would be good, good and different, he had a thought. And he was excited about this cup ramen you were talking about.

“Is it as good as chocolate?” He asked in a whisper as if trying to keep the secret down so no one else but he gets to enjoy the goods from the future.

You widened your eyes confidently, “No, Hyunjin. It’s better.”

A smile slowly spread across his face, an excited smile. And when you beckoned him to follow you, he really thought he would keep you a secret from everyone else if he could.

* * *

Hyunjin practically hogged the whole cup and for a moment you thought you were going to be mad at him for finishing the only instant ramen you bought with you without leaving you even a drop. But you didn’t, you were far from mad, having your heart once again pulled in by the delighted aura of him as he tasted the unique food in his hand.

You two were hunched together in the small corner of the empty kitchen after the maids brought the food out to serve the royalties. You watched him slurp the noodle with a small, lovely pout, feeling your worries dissolve away again at each hum he made.

Hyunjin’s delight made you feel delighted too, even though it was over the smallest thing like trying out a cup noodle.

“That was heaven,” he complimented for the hundredth time as you two stomped out the kitchen together, him with a full stomach and you with a fulfilled heart.

You grinned, nodding in agreement, “I know right?”

Hyunjin sighed contently, a constant smile lit on his face. He was so preoccupied with the brand new heaven-sent food you showed him that he almost forgot about the lunchtime you didn’t have. As the realization hit him, he quickly paused and turned to you, concern etched in his voice as he spoke, “Wait, what about you, (Name)?”

Ah, it rolled off his tongue so easily. How great.

“What about me?”

“I ate your food! Oh no,” he looked around, “I will have the kitchen cook something for you right now. Just give me a second!”

You put a hand on his arm when he seemed to have hiked up his lengthy hanbok, all ready to head back to the bedroom area to find a kitchen maid. You shook your head upon his hurried expression, waving your hand dismissively to signal that you were fine.

“Don’t worry about it. How about we head out to town and see if I can grab something from there?” You suggested, jabbing your thumb towards wherever direction since you still haven’t gotten yourself familiarized around this place. “You did say you are going to show me around town.”

Hyunjin pursed his lips together, unable to understand why you would choose to eat peasant food rather than the meals prepared by the best ingredients provided within the palace, but he supposed it was one of the weird traditions you futuristic people have. He nodded then, a soft agreement coming out of his mouth.

“I will just change into something plainer and grab a bag of gold, then we can head out,” he said casually, finding the quick change of your expression disheartening. “Wha–what, what did I say?”

Your neutral face of contemplation slowly turned into a smile, a somewhat satisfied and somewhat envious smile.

For one, the fact that Hyunjin could just grab a bag of gold whenever he wants was the kind of life you strive for in the future (the future of the future, in the setting you were in). Second, the fact that Hyunjin was grabbing a bag of gold so he could bring you around town, essentially meaning he was getting a whole chunk of money for you, was very… very attractive.

You couldn’t believe it took you a time travel accident and a whole lot of confusion to finally have someone take you out and buy you a meal.

“You said something very good to me,” you said, “I can’t believe you would be the one to say it to me but well, I will take whatever I can get.”

“What nice thing did I say?” Hyunjin pressed on when you started to walk ahead of him, even after you have chosen to ignore him the first few times.

You rolled your eyes at his consistency, hiding a playful smile behind your clenched jaw. Turning to him, you tilted your head to the side bashfully, “You know this is kind of like a date, right?”

“Date?”

“Yeah, when two people hang out with each other for a day,” you said, “It can be romantically or friendly, and I will take both really.”

“Romantic–romantically?” Hyunjin stuttered, his fingers finding each other quickly at the front.

“Yeah, like lovers.”

You furrowed your eyebrows at him as he seemed to choke up a little. He had done this an awful lot since you met him. Every time you did anything remotely boundary-breaking, like staring at him for a little longer than normal or leaning just a little closer to listen to him talk, he would blush and act all ankle twisting kind of shy.

You couldn’t tell if it was due to the social norms between people around here and you friendly antics were out of the ordinary or because Hyunjin liked you, a crush if you may.

You usually swatted away the latter since it made less sense than the first option.

“Yeah, but this is friendly, Hyunjin,” you confirmed, circling a finger between you and him, “Because we are friends.”

Hyunjin slowly nodded, “Yeah, I know.”

“What do you know, Hyunjin?”

You turned your head to the newcomer, a light-headed and easy-going voice that stepped in from the side. A boy slowly made his way over with a smirk on his face and twinkles in his eyes, when he approached you two, his smile widened.

“Good morning, hyung-nim,” Hyunjin greeted, bowing his head a little.

You stared curiously at him, letting this features sink in. His hairstyle was different than Hyunjin’s, his was tied up into a topknot, perfectly displaying his forehead and eyebrows that made you felt just a little more self-conscious about your eyes. His eyes were sharp and alert, with only small flashes of casualness inside them that if you weren’t paying attention, you would completely miss it.

“What’s your name?” You asked, squinting up at him.

Hyunjin cleared his throat quickly, nudging the side of your arm.

Your brows were furrowed now, “You look like a Minho.”

Hyunjin once again cleared his throat, but this time he leaned close to your ear and he spoke lowly, “That is because his name is Minho. But you are not supposed to address him that way.”

“I am not supposed to address anyone the way I did here, Hyunjin, you think I don’t already know that?” You said as you slapped at Hyunjin’s belly, not looking at him as you kept your eyes focused on Minho, who stared back at you challengingly.

“They call you by your name, Hyunjin,” Minho pointed out, his voice leveled and calm.

Hyunjin only nodded, unable to reply to the statement. You felt a small knot at your throat when you saw the way Hyunjin acted—respectful but timid. Eyeing Minho quickly and turning your attention back to Hyunjin, your mind tried to cultivate a small relationship map as much as it could from memory, trying to see where Minho stood in the food chain within this palace.

And you were upset, very upset.

“Hell yeah I do,” you spoke in place of him then, putting a hand in front of Hyunjin defensively as you stepped up to look at Minho in the way. “We are friends, so it is only normal I call him by his name. It doesn’t sound as estranged as the way everyone treats each other here.”

Minho raised his eyebrows and you had thought he was surprised at the way you reacted to him, but it appeared to be something else.

“Friends?” He asked, “I thought you two were cousins.”

You cursed under your breath, flinging your head to the side slightly at the simple mistake you made. Minho took the chance to move closer boldly, perhaps to exude intimidation, and he only stopped when the tip of his nose was inches away from yours. And when you finally turned your attention back to him, your breath hitched in your nose.

“What are you hiding?” Minho asked slowly.

You pursed your lips then, not letting yourself act on the quivering of your heart. “What I am hiding is none of your concern, Your Highness,” you said, pulling your hand out from your pocket and pressed the side of your phone against his chin, pushing him away slowly, “And I would appreciate it if you don’t act as if we’re close and burst my personal bubble.”

Minho only displayed a moment of confusion towards your words you said before he regained his posture. Hyunjin quickly pulled you back so he could grab Minho’s attention instead. His smile was careful when he looked at his older brother, his hands rubbed together anxiously due to the tense encounter between you and Minho.

“I’m sorry about my cousin, Neverland is a very different place,” Hyunjin said, ignoring the way you snorted behind him. “Anyway, I am about to head out to town with them, to show them around. So if you will excuse us–”

“Let me come along,” Minho cut in casually, “I haven’t been out in a long time either so let’s head out together.”

“No,” you let out a strangled noise from your back, exclaiming your protest, “This is supposed to be a date, it only involves two people! Only me and Hyunjin.”

“A da–date? What is that?” Minho furrowed his brows, glancing up at Hyunjin, who was unable to answer for a moment upon your sudden act of defense.

You opened your mouth and then closed it quickly, feeling your eyes tear up a little.

You were suddenly feeling a hurdle of emotions. Exhausted from all the explaining you have been doing and confused with this whole time traveling situation. Not only those, but it had also just come to you that you might have overreacted with Minho, completely left a bad impression there. And you were feeling kind of homesick, yearning for the comfort of your own bed and some good snacks in your home’s kitchen cabinet.

You breathed out a gentle croak of breath as you turned away from the two princes, pursing your lips and clenching your teeth to shut yourself up as you looked up at the sky to prevent the urgent tears from falling.

Hyunjin’s lips parted but he couldn’t find the right words to say. What could he possibly tell you? He didn’t even know what you were really upset about, and so what if he did? What could he possibly do when he knew nothing of your futuristic mindset?

When he reached out to touch your shoulder, hoping to send some reassurance to you the way you do to him whenever you laid your hand on his arm, you turned around with a smile.

You turned to Minho, an unwilling look on your face as you ducked your head. “I’m sorry for what I just did. I was overreacting,” you raised your head up again and reached out your hand, “Let’s start over. My name is (Name) and I am Hyunjin’s distant cousin. I would like to be friends with you, Your Highness.”

Minho stared at your hand for a while, not sure what you were doing. You hummed then, remembering they hadn’t invented the art of handshaking, so you reached in and took his hand voluntarily.

You waved your joined hands up and down slightly, finally breaking into a genuine smile, “This is the Neverland way to greeting someone, we shake hands with each other, Your Highness.”

Minho looked at your joined hands for a moment before he laughed, his expression relaxing for the first time. When you pulled away and went to stand by Hyunjin, he placed his hand behind his back again and nodded in acknowledgment at you.

“You… you can call me Minho,” he said, “Since that is the way you Neverland people did it.”

You hummed. And as you and Minho smiled freely at each other, Hyunjin felt a knot in his chest that he couldn’t shake off. It has happened before, multiple times, he just wasn’t sure why it was happening with you.

He only knew he wanted to keep you to himself, as chaste as his feelings for you were.

* * *

The town at night was as hectic as you expected it to be. All those montages of the main character walking around the brightly lit town, eating steamy buns and playing around with little trinkets was ultimately a scene that would happen if anyone ever time travels back to the older days.

The only unrealistic thing was the fact that all it took was a one-minute montage of them laughing and looking around to get used to the timeline they got sent to and, well, the time traveling.

For a while, perhaps about an hour long you believed, you weren’t thinking much about going back home and you actually took the chance to let your experience the beauty of the welcoming atmosphere among what everyone called peasants. Despite your unusual clothing and hairstyle, they didn’t seem to discriminate you so much and treated you well as they would any other people.

Oh, right, one more thing you noted: clothing changes were, as a matter of fact, enough to conceal the princes’ identity. Unbelievable because they still look the way they do, but no one seemed to have noticed.

Or maybe they did, but they chose to not point it out.

All in all, the feeling in the buzzing town was much better than that of the cold, stoic palace where everyone was rigid and, sadly to say, boring. You would much rather leave the palace if not for your casual friendship with Hyunjin (and possibly Minho, who had a huge change of attitude as you three marched your way down the road).

“This,” you held up the steam bun that you took a big bite of, “This is great. I did not know I would like it this much but Jesus, this is good. Is this like, the shit of this century or something?”

“The… the what?” Hyunjin asked, sharing a look with Minho.

You took another bite and with the food still in your mouth, you explained, “The shit, it means when something is the best, high quality! Like… when I say 'Hyunjin, you’re the shit!’ It means I think you are the best.”

Hyunjin laughed, his eyes shaping into little moons when you skipped over to his side and circled your arm around his with a laugh escaping your lips. With a small but cheesy voice, you spoke with a small nudge to his arm, “And I do think you’re the best.”

He laughed, feeling an unknown relief erupting from his chest, but the moment was fleeting as Minho, after a second later as you three approached the palace entrance, reached out for your hand and quickly yanked you away from him and instead to his side instead.

Both you and Hyunjin were startled by his sudden behavior, but Hyunjin for a brief moment because the bewilderment had shifted in his eyes so quickly you almost didn’t catch it. Hyunjin’s fist curled at his side as he furrowed his brows at Minho, who had you pinned next to him as he still hadn’t let go of your wrist, and finally understood where the chest tightening feeling came from.

It wasn’t all jealousy, of course there was jealousy too, but it was also… newfound competitiveness.

For the first time, Hyunjin had gotten something, someone, first. For the first time, he was on top of someone’s priority list, he was the person to rely on. For the first time, he wasn’t in his brothers’ shadow. And now Minho was planning to snatch that away from him, the way he unknowingly snatches everything away from him, all just because his mother was the official queen.

He loved his brothers, surely, but Hyunjin wasn’t going to lie when he said watching you push Minho away in your first encounter was one of the best things he has ever witnessed.

Minho glanced tensely to the side, at the palace entrance, and back at Hyunjin, “Princess Deokhye.”

Hearing the familiar name, you turned over to look at where Minho was just intensely looking at. You found a carriage right in front of the palace and a few people standing next to the horses. A girl dressed in colorful clothing and styled with multiple jewelry pins in her hair stood before another girl in plain clothing.

You widened your eyes in realization. A princess, of course, but you didn’t know which one that was in actual history (you did know that she was a bitch in the drama though, but let’s not let that affect your point of view).

Adverting your gaze to Hyunjin, who had tensed up quickly at the mention of her name, your brows raised even more than before and you let out a soft, knowing noise that soon turned into a small excited squeal.

“Hyunjin!” You hissed out, moving only a little away from Minho and letting him hold on to you now that you knew what he was trying to do (having you hold onto Hyunjin like that would not be the best way to show that he is available). “Hyunjin, you like her? And your stupid ass didn’t tell me!”

“Why would I tell you who I like?”

“So you do like her! Oh my god, you–friends tell each other things like that so we can make fun of each other!” You hadn’t realized you were raising your voice until Deokhye had walked over and spoke in a more mellow tone, a more gentle and level-headed voice in complete contrast to yours.

She had a permanent polite smile on her face that, with your experience, easily passed off as unwilling to you. It was the kind of smile literally every child makes when they have to talk to a relative they only see once every New Year—bored, unhappy, doesn’t want to be there.

She greeted Hyunjin with a small bow before turning to Minho. The slight flicker in the color of her eyes, even though it was only for one second, was what made you gasp. You knew what that look was, you knew what that moment of flicker was, and you were dying inside to keep yourself steady.

Princess Deokhye likes Minho.

Looking down at his hand that still held your wrist and back up at Deokhye’s deeply irritated gaze that you just knew wasn’t because of your unusual appearances, you breathed out a heavy sigh. This wasn’t what you wanted. Hell no, not this love triangle shit, not at this time when you could be beheaded with a wave of the King’s hand.

“Minho, my friend, my very good friend,” you started suddenly, prying your hand away from his grip with the most forceful laugh you have possibly ever mustered as you moved away from both confused princes. You pointed at Minho with finger guns, “You’re my friend, just plain old good friend. A great buddy, best bros!”

“What are they up to now?” Minho asked, holding his hand up to mimic your hand gesture. He raised his hand up high then, “Hey! (Name)! You’re going the wrong way!”

“Shut up, Minho! Shut up!” You yelled as you stopped abruptly and turned back around to march your way inside the palace, the guards quickly letting you in after the incident of you miraculously knocking two of their people unconscious (their two friends might have exaggerated a little).

Deokhye glanced after you with a huff hanging by her nose before she turned back to Minho, a smile quick gracing her lips, “Who is that?”

“Oh, they are Hyunjin’s cousin,” Minho replied, watching the spot where you disappeared from his sight with utter amusement, “A very interesting person, I can’t understand them.”

Deokhye breathed out a laugh that sounded more like a scoff than anything, eyeing Minho carefully with a hint of malice that was meant for no one else but you. She gently leaned in to touch Minho’s arm, “You know what they say. Things that you can’t understand are dangerous, Your Highness.”

Minho looked down at her, a shrug on his shoulders, “I suppose. But they’re my friend, I am sure they’re fine.”

Hyunjin licked his lower lip in defeat, lowering his head to glance at the ground as he got completely left out.

Yeah, well, what did he expect. If he couldn’t even gain the interest of someone of his own era, what made him think he could keep someone like you who came from a much more advanced place?

Of course he wasn’t in the eyes of anyone. Not Deokhye, and certainly not you.

* * *

Hyunjin found you waiting behind the wall by the gate after he left Minho and Deokhye outside the palace. When you smiled at him, he only returned the greeting with a curt nod before he sped past you. You didn’t think much of it and simply trailed after him.

You two finally arrived back to the household area after a slow walk through the palace ground, but instead of heading back to your room, you decide to follow Hyunjin back to his instead.

“Did you forget your way back to your room?” Hyunjin asked grumpily, his words slurred out on purpose causing them to be almost unintelligible.

“No, I’m just intruding in your personal space,” you said, looking around the dark room that was only illuminated by the light cast from the window until Hyunjin finally lit up a match and put the fire on several candles that sat on his desk.

You hummed, “Candles! Do they have any smell?”

“They’re just candles, (Name),” Hyunjin said, dropping the burned out match outside the room door and sliding it shut again.

“Oh, we have candles that come with different scents like roses or the ocean,” you told him as you once again gave the dull room a glance, taking in the normal furniture and lack of decorations.

“Yeah, that is fun,” Hyunjin muttered under his breath, causing you to furrow your eyebrows with the knowledge that something was obviously up, and you thought you have an idea of what he was upset about.

“Hyunjin,” you called out, heading it sit on the floor right next to his bed. When he didn’t respond to you, you called him again, louder but more coaxing this time, “Hyunjin.”

He turned around to face you, pouting when you patted the space next to you. He hesitantly walked over and plopped down next to you, bringing his knees up to his chest and playing with his fingers in between the little space of his legs and torso.

You looked at him carefully before you spoke, “You like Princess Deokhye.”

Hyunjin knew there was no point in hiding from you, it wasn’t like you already know about the past anyway. You probably had all the information about Goryeo stored in the little device of yours for all he knew.

“What’s the point? She doesn’t like me and she isn’t going to marry me,” Hyunjin scoffed, “She is appointed to marry the crown prince, but honestly if she and hyung-nim beg for it, maybe the King will let those two marry each other instead and find Chan hyung-nim another princess.”

You jutted out your bottom light gently and held out your hand, urging him to take it. There was not much you could tell him as you had never really fallen in love with anyone but celebrities who you knew you have zero chance with and you completely accept that fact.

But Hyunjin didn’t look like he wanted to accept his wicked fate with Deokhye, and it wasn’t within your ability to persuade him sometimes love happens this way and that he should simply get over it.

Now, hand holding was within the knowledge of concepts of Hyunjin, but he didn’t expect you to initiate it at a time and space like this and he certainly did not expect to like the way you snuggled up to him with your hands together on your lap so much.

Even lovers rarely get like this with each other around here. Mostly because people don’t really fall in love with each other, he supposed, he had never seen his father act like this with his mother, nor the official queen. But what would he know about that? His household was of the lowest rank.

“Lay your head on mine, Hyunjin,” you said playfully, reaching up to press on the side of his head so he comfortably leans on you too. You giggled then, looking at the flickering fire on the desk, “Do you know this is called? What we are doing right now.”

“Hugging?” Hyunjin asked.

“Yes, but this is more than just hugging, this is cuddling. Only very close people do it with each other,” you said, “It helps with releasing stress because when you cuddle someone, your brain releases something called oxytocin that makes you calm.”

Hyunjin had a hard time understanding you but your voice sounded like a strange lullaby to him, soothing and safe. To urge you to speak more for his own sake, he asked you about certain words.

He kept you talking, he kept you singing, and he listened even when he couldn’t understand a thing you said.

“Hyunjin,” you called after a moment of silence. Hyunjin mentally thanked the Gods for your initiative as he was having trouble making up questions in his head. He hummed a little, drowning himself further and further into the touch of your thumbs across the back of his palm, gliding across slowly as if examining the veins under his skin.

“Why do you love Deokhye?” You asked, letting out a gentle laugh, “Why is she the shit in your life?”

Hyunjin wanted to protest discussing this topic. He was being rather pessimistic about it, wanting to say that it doesn’t matter why he was in love with her because they were never going to end up together, but if he ventured further into it, he knew he was lying to himself.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk about it, it was that he wasn’t sure if he really felt that way towards Deokhye anymore.

After you came along, that was. And it was absolutely ridiculous, you had only been here for two and a half day, but you had managed to flip his entire world upside down. Everything he had ever known, every system that was beaten into his brain—all gone.

Back then, there were no extra people to point out that there were other potential candidates—better candidates—for his pathetic love life. It was you who showed him he didn’t have to dwell in this unrequited love, that perhaps his feeling wasn’t fully developed yet, that Deokhye wasn’t all that there was for him.

“Does it matter?” He grumbled under this breath, nuzzling his cheek against the top of your head lazily, “She will never be with me, even if she wants to. I’m not special here.”

You sucked in a breath, “That’s not true, Hyunjin. That is very not true.”

He bit down on his lower lip, “Yeah?”

“Yeah, and I have proof,” you said as you held up his hand, showing him his wrist. “Do you see this line here, Hyunjin? This bulging line here, this is called a vein. I heard somewhere that the blood flowing inside these veins are made of four kinds of iron atoms. Do you know how irons are naturally made?”

“How are they made?”

“They can only be made in the cores of dying stars, so essentially speaking,” you said as you ran a finger down his vein line, “You are made of stardust, Hyunjin. Something out of the sky, something created by nature itself, so rare and so special that even the King is incomparable to it.”

“Made out of stardust…”

“Yeah, out of stardust, Hyunjin, that’s you” you smiled, “So whoever dares to deem you invaluable will have to answer to the vast power of the sky. And also me, they’ll have to go through me. I am going to kick their ass.”

Hyunjin sighed, in revelation? In relief? He wasn’t so sure what he was feeling. It was all too overwhelming for him to comprehend the amount of love he was receiving, the amount of love he should have gotten ever since the day he was born but was never gifted to until now, by you.

He thought about the world in the future then, thinking maybe everyone treated each other the way you treated him, thinking that he was definitely born in the wrong era.

What a beautiful time you live in, he couldn’t help but think, because people around you got to enjoy your presence and your attention, because you live in it. He almost felt guilty for taking you away from them, but he didn’t mind being selfish for once.

Goryeo could use some beauty right now and thank god you were here to grace the place with it.

Hyunjin held your hand a little tighter then. You let him.

And while you were calm as you basked in the beating of your hearts, he felt special with the flowing of stardusts in his blood.

* * *

You sat in the staff area of the courtroom, a bored look displayed on your face as you listened to the King ramble on and on about politics and foreign trade problems with the palace advisers. Some of the problems you have never heard of, some of them you could only vaguely remember, and some of them you failed a whole test for.

Hyunjin noticed, from across the room, and differentiated each of them with the little expressions you pull every time the King or the advisers suggested a potential solution. Rolling eyes meant stupidity, furrowed eyebrows meant bad suggestions, a quirk of your eyebrow meant interest, and at last a heavy sigh meant agreement.

He counted and so far there were more eye rolls than deep sighs. The King was not doing so good.

He hadn’t been listening at all either but that wasn’t a problem. No one was going to ask him about it anyway, he was never the one in charge when it came to running the country. Therefore, he spent his sweet time just keeping his eyes on you, adoring you from afar without fully acknowledging his feeling of admiration.

Your eyes darted up to the ceiling and you grumbled. You thought you were going to find a clock there but you remembered where you were. You could not believe you miss that ugly ticking clock in your dull classroom.

Returning your eyes back down to the court, you listened to the mathematician ramble about the problem written on the problem. You weren’t sure what the problem was supposed to solve but you saw weird shapes and lines. Sitting up to see the paper more properly, you were able to decipher a triangle drawn in the middle with two numbers on each side.

“Isn’t that just trigonometry,” you said to yourself, supposedly, except you had said it in a voice loud enough for most people to hear and now the mathematician was looking at you with an unreadable expression.

You quickly shrunk back against your seat, “Sorry.”

“No, no, come show us how to do this,” the King ordered, pointing at you and moving his finger to the center.

You opened your mouth to protest but stopped when you weighted the consequences of you simply doing the math and disobeying the King’s order. With a frown, you flung your schoolbag in front of you and unzipped it, reaching inside to pull out a pen and your calculator.

You headed over to the center before leaning down. You blew some air out of your nose, feeling everyone’s eyes on you as you read the question that you didn’t understand, so you had to rely completely on the graph on the side of it.

“This is… Pythagorean theorem, so I just have to square these…” you mumbled away as you casually turned on your calculator, pressing on your bluebell pen to write on the paper. You looked up at the King’s confused expression and immediately realized he was having trouble understanding the objects in your hands, which you supposed was going to happen the second you whipped them out.

“This is a pen, it writes. This is a calculator, a thing that does the math for you,” you explained quickly before returning back to the question at hand, “They are… Neverland stuff.”

The court watched you scribble and scribble, writing letters and symbols that have yet to be invented until you finally dropped your pen and held up the paper to the mathematician, who received the paper carefully.

You stood up then, side-eyeing Hyunjin and immediately peeling your gaze away to return back to your seat. Packing up your things quicker than you had ever done two minutes before the school bell, you loudly zipped up your backpack, flung it over your shoulder and headed out for the door.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” You replied from the end of the room, yelling back at the King with a thumb up and a soulless, almost humorous smile, “I am skedaddling out of here!”

Pushing the door and finding that it won’t budge, it took you a good second to remember the doors back in the days didn’t come in a push and pull motion. You let out a frustrated groan, “God damn it, this is a public place, can’t you lazy people just put a label on the door?”

Hyunjin stood up quickly then, wanting to follow you but also not forgetting to give the King a notice of his sudden leave. He bowed politely with his hand in front of him, “I am going to see to my cousin, Your Majesty.”

“Wait.”

Hyunjin halted to a stop, his movement slow and clear as he turned around and kept his head low. The King readjusted his position on his throne before he spoke, looking a little shameful as he cleared his throat, “Ask your cousin about the… objects they used for the Math questions and I want to know how to go to Neverland, my son.”

Hyunjin’s jaw dropped slightly at his father’s request but he only nodded before quickly scurrying away too. He met you outside the room and you immediately clung onto him with your expression pulled into one of distress. Hyunjin hoisted you up by your waist as he slowly walked you over to the ground field in the middle of the palace.

“God, I thought I was gonna throw up in there,” you said with wide, angry eyes, “I got fucking war flashbacks to the time I messed up my final presentation.”

“I didn’t know you have been to war, (Name),” Hyunjin questioned.

“It’s a saying, Hyunjin, when you remember some embarrassing memories,” you frowned, your voice whiny at the recall of you spilling blushing madly in front of the class. It was worse that you somehow saw the memory from a third person point of view and it is just the best way for you to imagine how lame you appeared in front of everyone else.

After arriving at the large field surrounded by short, wide structures in all directions, you two stopped by the wall and you slumped against it, your brows formed into a constant furrow. You finally let yourself get a breather, looking ahead at the road to the main gate of the palace.

You reached down to the ground and grabbed a rock to throw it ahead of you. Hyunjin stood next to you, looking down at you as you childishly let out frustrated crying noises that he found more endearing than annoying. After all, he would never catch dead a royalty doing something like that in the presence of anyone but their maid.

“That was boring and scary, I am never going inside again,” you said.

Hyunjin hummed out a laugh, finally sitting down next to you. He nudged your side, “The King said he wants to know about the things you just used and he wants a map to Neverland.”

You rolled your eyes, “Wouldn’t he want that.”

“Yeah, I just told you he wanted that.”

You turned to Hyunjin, eyes crinkling at how dense he was when it came to catching on to the art of sarcasm. You shook your head then, choosing to feel glad that his innocence was still intact and he still had the heart to take things seriously, and with a content sigh, you leaned your head against his shoulder for comfort.

“You are adorable, Hyunjin. Do you know that?” You asked slowly.

He automatically leaned his head against yours, smiling fondly at the air as he shook his head, “I don’t even know what that word means, (Name).”

“It means you are very… very…” you bit your inner cheek, “Just know that it is a good thing and it makes people like you a lot.”

Hyunjin laughed then and you knew exactly what that laugh meant, that laugh of hidden insecurities and self-doubt elements. You slapped his knee continuously before your hand slowly came to gentle pats, “Trust me, Hyunjin, men and women will fawn so hard over you if you come with me to the future. They will love you, with that face and that personality. You are celebrity material.”

“Cele–brity… celebrity,” Hyunjin repeated patiently before he asked, “Are they good?”

“Some of them, yeah,” you nodded.

“So they are people with stardusts in their veins too?”

You inhaled, humming at his question. “Not all of them,” you said, “Only the very special ones–actually, it depends. If you love them, they will have stardusts in their veins. If you don’t, they are just normal celebrities.”

Hyunjin nodded understandably, glancing at the back of his arm.

If you love them, huh?

You were the one who told him about his stardusts, so you believed he has stardusts in his blood.

He lightly blushed at the thought, suppressing a smile and instead he chose to nuzzle his face at the top of your head. Feeling his sudden wave of affection, you only giggled up at him, reaching up to pinch his bubbly cheek.

Hyunjin wasn’t sure if that implied you had strong feelings for him.

He hoped it did, surely.

* * *

Minho came by later to tell both of you the announcement you had missed. It was a simple announcement of the Crown Prince and Princess Deokhye’s engagement party. When you heard it, a part of you felt bad for Hyunjin (when you really didn’t have to) while the other part of you were sympathetic towards Princess Deokhye’s fate in her love life, that everything was already set and done for her.

“Hyung-nim is going to treat her well, I am sure,” Hyunjin mumbled, “He is nice like that.”

You let out a noise in response, trying your best at drawing a map of Goreyo by copying the chart you managed to find in one of the word documents you saved in your laptop. It was literally the only time you felt grateful for an unnecessary project.

“Are you drawing Neverland?”

“No, Hyunjin. That place doesn’t exist,” you said.

“Then why are you drawing how to go there?”

“Because your dad wanted it, so I am going to draw a map to nowhere and let him order his stupid troops around,” you rolled your eyes, shading a big area and drawing random lines on top of the land. “I wish Neverland existed, it would be such a great place to escape to.”

Hyunjin tilted his head questioningly, intrigued to know that there was somewhere else you found better than the Earth you already lived in, “I think your world is already a pretty good place.”

You chuckled, “That’s just because you’ve never been there. Don’t be fooled by all the things I have, we aren’t all that good either.”

Your voice had trailed off gently, suddenly feeling guilty for having shattered what was supposed to be a perfect image, a hopeful image for a better place in Hyunjin’s head. It wasn’t like he was ever going to find out the truth, and in all honesty, humanity had come so far since a thousand years ago.

Why couldn’t you just give Hyunjin the benefit of the doubt? Why couldn’t you sprinkle some magic in his life the way many things did to your own childhood?

You sighed heavily as you dropped your pen and crumbled up the paper, throwing it far away from you. Hyunjin watched you with confusion but he accepted the warm embrace you decided to gave him.

This was different than usual snuggling you two did. Instead of leaning on his shoulder, you laid your head on his chest this time as his back leaned against the tree trunk. He knew to circle his arms around you, and when you let out a soft sigh, he felt his chest relax.

“Do you want to know about my world? About Earth?”

Hyunjin’s hand cupped your shoulder as he stared ahead at the sky. The sun was setting slowly but the sky hadn’t quite changed its clothes yet. It was still a pretty shade of blue, but he could tell it was getting darker and darker, and the sky was on the verge of becoming a shade of pink and orange.

When he spoke, his voice was as low as the sun.

“I want to know about everything.” Everything about you.

You shifted your head a little, still leaning comfortably against him. Your eyes were tender, squinting a little at the sun to reduce the damage to your eyes.

“We have a lot of good things, actually. Like I already told you, we have television and air conditioning…”

You went on and on, moving from one thing to another, and he listened like you were the only person he could ever listen to.

You talked about advanced objects that Hyunjin would hardly imagine, things like cars and airplanes that bring you to all parts of the world. You talked about the things that were specifically for entertainment, like books and movies, things that gave your people an escape despite your already seemingly perfect world.

And you moved on to your people of Earth, the flawed people who were changing slowly, people who were getting better. You talked about friends who stuck by each other and parents who cared about their children openly.

The more you talk, the more you gave him hope, a fantasy that he could hold on to when he felt devastated.

Your world was great.

And Hyunjin was suddenly scared.

“(Name)…” he started after staying quiet for so long, and unconsciously he brought you closer to him, “Do you… have you ever thought about finding a way back?”

You were calm when you heard the question and you could hear the concern laced in his voice. Truthfully, you have thought about heading back a few times, using all kinds of way you could think of to get you back to where you belong. But as time passed, as you wrecked your brain only to come up with no solution, as you spent more time here with everyone, with the prices and the old but vibrant town, with Hyunjin—your hope for that had somewhat diminished.

And you realized you didn’t really want to get back. You wanted to stay here with Hyunjin, who had made you feel extremely cared for and so valued with the way he listens to every word you say with seriousness and how he appreciates your mere presence.

You realized then, that your worst-case scenario wasn’t that you die, it was you leaving Hyunjin alone in this place.

“No,” you shook your head curtly, burying your head in his chest until you couldn’t anymore. “Not anymore.”

Hyunjin let out a relieved sigh, his hand stroking the side of your face like he could not get enough of you. He was afraid of what you would say. With a world like yours, he could hardly imagine why you would ever want to stay in Goryeo.

“I want to stay with you,” you muttered.

There he has it. The answer to his question, the reason why you would want to stay in Goryeo.

It was him.

Now it was just up to him, to see if he caught on to that.

* * *

The engagement ball was boring but you felt wrong for expecting anything better. Obviously, there would be a difference between parties in your days and party in Goryeo so technically, it was your fault for having high expectations at all.

Aside from that, it was also horrible for you to watch as Princess Deokhye walk herself further and further away from the love of her life and to watch Chan put on a strong front when all he wanted to do was let her hand go, so no one has to marry someone they didn’t want to.

Your frown was evident the whole process of the grand announcement, and you were really so close, pinching your thumb and index finger kind of close, to telling the unhappy couple adultery with consent was always an option. Except it wouldn’t really be adultery, it would just be lying to your parents.

And that was, universally, what kids had done at least once in their life, so what’s the big deal really (you did realize you were making less of the problem).

Before the party ended, you decided to head back to Hyunjin’s home because the hanbok you were forced to wear just wasn’t really doing it for you. You have worn one before but it was only once every year and only for a family picture worth of time, having to endure the unfamiliar fabric for the whole day was exhausting for you.

“I knew I would find you here.”

You turned around to see Hyunjin slowly making his way over to you, who was standing by the tree. You playfully rolled your eyes as a laugh escaped your lips. Approaching him, you two stood beneath the star in the empty yard, listening to the sound of hollering from the part that was located rather far away from this corner of the palace.

“Why are you here, Hyunjin,” you said, the question coming out as a casual statement than anything because you knew what he was going to say: he was here to find you.

“I came here to find you,” he said, grabbing a hold of both of your hands as his eyes gleamed with fondness at your presence. The way he swayed his body as you two stumbled in circles around the yard was filled with such love-struck that it was a miracle you didn’t just grab him there and kissed him.

Maybe you should.

“You know what this calls for?” You said, smiling at him as you let go and quickly made your way to the tree, where your schoolbag resided for hours as you and Hyunjin had been hanging out under there before the engagement party started.

You headed back to Hyunjin with your phone in your hand. You had been saving up your battery carefully, not wanting it to be dead despite being unable to use it anyway. Scrolling down the screen, you pressed on something and turned your phone’s volume all the way up.

“Music,” you said, placing the phone on the floor, “And slow dances.”

You held Hyunjin’s hands again and walked closer, carefully putting his hand on either side o your waist while you wrapped yours around his neck. Your outfits were making the close position hard to achieve but it felt good enough for you two.

“There are no special moves, we just kind of sway to the song,” you explained, “But this is nice. It is really romantic, don’t you think?”

Hyunjin didn’t remember what romantic meant but he nodded, assuming it was something good as everything you had ever given him. He could feel the thumping of his heart that slowly came to a more gentle speed as you guided him with baby steps, moving across the light of the moon and traveling through the maps of the star.

“You’re good at this,” you giggled proudly at him, looking into his eyes that shone too much and gave away overwhelming affection.

It wasn’t long before you started to hum along with the tune and Hyunjin could feel revelation burst through his chest. This was why he needs you with him at all times, this was why he couldn’t even wait half an hour at the party before finding you. You made him feel relaxed, you made him forget about everything and he has the chance to feel as if he really was the center of the universe.

Because he has to be with you or else he breaks.

Because he was so immensely in love with you, and you were so in love with him.

You never told him, but he could feel it on you, somehow.

He could not even begin to imagine how devastated he would be if you disappear one day and he has to go back to the way things were, go back to the world before you appeared, to the old days.

He would hate to go back to Goryeo when he’s met Earth. The oh so perfect Earth you’ve given him, the perfect paradise.

How tragic would it be for him when his Neverland is destroyed.

* * *

How could you have forgotten about the sunrise?

You woke up early the morning you disappeared from Earth, so early the sun was barely up yet. You remembered how the sky was a divine of both dark and light and it urged you to look up at to see how exactly it was being so contradicting.

Your eyes opened at early sunrise and you found yourself lying next to Hyunjin under the tree in the backyard. Yesterday night was not a blur to you at all. You two danced and sang and talked until you both settled down under the tree and just stayed silent with each other, holding onto each other and communicating with bare hearts.

And then that was it.

You fell asleep and you woke up to see the sunrise, the same sunrise that turned the sky the light of both dim and bright, so confusing that you weren’t sure what you were looking at because it seemed transparent.

You looked at your fading hands and back at Hyunjin, who slept peacefully under the tree. You recognized that your worst-case scenario was happening but you couldn’t bring yourself to protest, to make a big deal out of it. You just wanted to leave quietly, to leave cowardly.

Or maybe you just didn’t want to see how Hyunjin would react to this because if you did, you would be absolutely demolished knowing that there was nothing both of you could do about it, that things didn’t always happen the way you want them to happen.

You grabbed your schoolbag and wore them on your back, quietly with your hoodie on your forearm, you dropped yourself down next to Hyunjin and you hovered over him to tenderly stroke his closed eyelids.

“I'm–” you gulped, “I’m going, Hyunjin. I am so sorry.”

You bit your lower lip when you felt a hand at your wrist, a thumb running across it. He was awake, you didn’t know when but he was up. His eyes remained closed, though. He didn’t want to see you right now, he didn’t want to see your possible fading image and find himself wanting nothing but just to hold onto you.

“It’s okay,” he whispered, “You can go.”

You hummed, kissing up from his jaw to all over his face, leaving the last of your touch all over him in hopes that he would always remember. You felt light-headed after a while and you could feel your disappearance nearing.

God, why was the process so slow? It was so quick when you arrived. Was this the universe’s way of showing you mercy, by giving you time?

You finally pecked his lips, your heart clenching at the sweet and soulful feeling that you would cease to be able to feel, and regret coated your heart upon the accusation of why you hadn’t done it sooner. Why hadn’t you just kissed him before?

“I love you, Hyunjin, I really do. Remember me, remember the stardusts in your hand,” you confessed quickly before sealing your lips shut again.

And then you were gone, leaving nothing but empty air and an empty heart behind. Hyunjin clenched his jaw, pursing his lips, again and again, to try and recreate the sensation of your lips on top of his but it was to avail.

Hyunjin kept his eyes shut then, letting his imagination run wild before he had to wake up and face the day, to face a world without you in it.

The birds chirped, and he laughed.

“You’re right, (Name),” he croaked out, “The birds are so fucking loud here.”

And the stardusts sure shine so brightly.

* * *

The leaves crunched soundly under his shoes as Hyunjin walked around the back yard. It was early morning, the birds had woken him up. Finding it hard to head back to bed with an empty mind and no one he dared to wake up to talk to, Hyunjin grabbed the hoodie you dropped ages ago before you left and he headed to the yard.

He stood under the tree, the usual spot, the spot he had begun to both hate and love. Fumbling with the material in his hand, he pouted when his finger reached the hood of the piece and he held it up in front of him, eyeing it curiously.

He had never worn it before, but he supposed it wouldn’t hurt to try.

Bringing up the end of the hoodie, he messed around with the hem, recalling the image of you wearing it. He carefully reached his hand inside, finding it difficult due to him already wearing a hanbok, but nonetheless, he managed to find the sleeves and placed his arms over.

Pulling the hoodie over his torso, he huffed out a little at how tight it looked. It was really loose on you even when you were wearing a shirt underneath it. Hyunjin breathed out a frustrated sigh, pulling at the strings of your hoodie as he swayed about.

He could smell you on it and perhaps that was the only reason why he hadn’t taken it off yet, even though it felt absolutely uncomfortable.

He missed you. He really did, and he had been lying to everyone about your disappearance, saying you had left to discover a better place. He didn’t blame you for leaving, even though you had told him you wanted to stay. He simply hoped you were happy wherever you were.

Hyunjin looked up at the sky and his eyes squinted. A questioning sound popped out from his throat as he tilted his head to the side, looking at the sunrise.

The sun appeared full circle soon after, by then the prince was gone.

And he only left bits and bits of stardust behind.


	2. lots of stardust.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hyunjin came back to you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short sequel to bits of stardust that i whipped up in a whim!

Hyunjin loved, loved, loved the modern world.

You took him out the next day, after a night of tight snuggling and refusing to let each other go. You two didn’t really catch up with each other, simply making up the lost times by pressing firm kisses to each others’ jaw and eyes and lips.

It was quite something, to both of you. The soft mattress and blanket—that Hyunjin absolutely loved—engulfing your figures, a layer on top of another warm layer that was your tangled arms and legs.

It was so calming, so lovely, so phenomenal. It was a Neverland Hyunjin could not get enough of.

And then it was a paradise when you brought Hyunjin out to the world.

Cutting and styling his hair, watching his eyes turn wide at the sharp scissors as it chopped off chunks of his long, luxurious hair.

Getting him new clothes, admiring the way he awkwardly but graceful twisted and turned in front of the changing room mirror, still unable to understand the science behind lights and elevator.

Teaching him how to read, to understand the modern language, finding it so adorable the way he pouts when he couldn’t understand a word, or when he jumps when got a word right, or when he nudges you after a salesman went up to ask him something.

Buying him food and drinks, catching right in time the satisfying gleam flashing in his eyes as he took a sip of the boba milk tea, his mouth moving hesitantly as he eyed you for confirmation when his teeth touched the round, squishy object.

Window shopping through the grand mall, with him grabbing a hold of your hand when he mistook the people, who were actually gawking at him in awe, as people who found you interesting, and he got protective.

Your day was filled with him, with his little giggles, his gentle touches, his whispering voice, his caring eyes, and oh, his love—you were completely drowned in every little piece of him.

Drowning but not suffocating. You were happy, happier than you had ever been, and Hyunjin made you that way.

“How are you feeling?” You asked, propping yourself up on the bed after a long day.

His hair was shorter now, black and fluffy. It felt the same when you threaded your fingers through them, tugging at them gently with your thumb constantly swiping across his temple.

His lips were still full and cushion soft, as you knew after having kissed it millions of times deep into the night. Possibly with a tinge of strawberry taste now that you helped him apply the chapstick. You have yet to kiss him after that, not wanting to smear away the products from his absolutely alluring mouth.

His eyes still sparked with so many different kinds of light. With excitement when you show him something new, with childishness when you opened your arms to him, with elegance when he walked down the street, and with love whenever he looked at you.

You hadn’t realized it before, that you were remembering Hyunjin all over again even though he was lying on the bed right next to you, staring up at you with swirls of rose petals in the red of his smile.

“Like I love you,” he replied in a whisper, showing you a lazy smile. “Also a little tired. We walked a lot, and I am not used to the new shoes…”

You smiled at him, brushing away his bangs and leaning down to press a kiss on his eyelids. And when Hyunjin sighed in satisfaction, his chest heaving up against your own, you forgot to stop.

You kissed every part of his face, the way you did that sunrise, starting from his jaw to all over his features. But this time you didn’t rush, you took your time, leaving your love with each breath he took.

Hyunjin’s hands reached up to cup your face soon enough and he tried to keep his eyes open so he could look at you, to see you move away only to lean back into him again. There was a kind of content he felt in that, the kind of joy he founding receiving such an overwhelming amount of love, and when you finished off and finally moved away, Hyunjin’s eyes were filled with clouds of haze, love-struck—they gleam like stardust.

Hyunjin was drowning in the care you’re giving him, but he wasn’t suffocating. He loved it, so much, more than words could describe.

“Kiss me again,” he whined a little, pouting as you giggled.

You did so, but this time you planted all your emotions on the brink of his lips, slowly sliding in to mold your mouth perfectly with his. His chest bloomed and he suppressed a small squeal when you repeatedly pecked his lips, a smile quickly adorning them and his eyes shaped into moons.

You pulled away, close enough to feel his breath on your skin.

His lips did taste like strawberry, how wonderful.

“Kiss me again,” he asked, sneaking his arms down to your torso.

“Haven’t you had enough? You’ll get bored of it, Hyunjin,” you said jokingly with a laugh.

Hyunjin pursed his lips, his eyes widening a fraction as they trailed up to look into your eyes. He tilted his head to the side, shifting the cover of the pillow, and he hummed. Enough? How could he ever get enough of you? Never, never in a thousand years.

And it had, actually, been a thousand years.

Hyunjin was still in love with you anyway.

You felt a small tickle at your side and you hit his shoulder lightly, letting yourself down on top of his chest to rest with his beating heart. It rang through your ears, making the quiet air dissolve to the background as the rhythm of his heart mixed together with the atmosphere.

Hyunjin smiled up at the ceiling and he finally closed his eyes, securing the feeling you held against him.

His Neverland was built back up when you were back to his side.

And it was filled with lots of stardusts.


End file.
